My footsteps echo in the empty hall. This won’t be the first time I’ve been to see Sally Morrison, the school counselor. She doesn’t believe the gossip and she never accepts my explanations, which consist of various accounts of clumsiness. This doesn’t happen often, truthfully, but it occurs often enough that she’s gotten more direct.
“Hi, Elizabeth,” she greets me when I appear in her office doorway. The main office behind me is busy, the secretary talking loudly on the phone, the fax machine spitting out papers in the corner. “You can shut it,” Sally tells me, pointing at the door with her pen. As I move to comply, I notice that she’s added yet another plant to her shelves. That makes eight now.
“So what’s the story this time?” Sally asks without preamble. No more small talk during our meetings, then. I sit down, waiting for that creak that always happens when I rest my full weight on the chair; we’ve developed a routine.
I run through my options before answering. Sally has no power unless I give it to her; she can’t make any calls or get involved in my life unless I give her information she can use. Information I have no intention of giving.
“I was milking our cow. She kicked me in the face. She gets touchy like that sometimes.” I shrug, as if to say,
Sally sighs, tapping her pen over and over. Her features are too strong to be considered pretty, with her square chin and thin lips, but she seems to try to make up for this in style. As her pen continues to
“Okay, Elizabeth,” she says, returning my attention to the conversation. “We both know this game. We’ve been playing it for a couple of years now. And by now you should know that all I want is to help you.”
Games. Her words make me think of the Emotions. And with the thought of them come thoughts of my nothingness, of my paintings, of my dreams. Sally waits for me to respond, and I try to empty my mind; I’m not usually so easily distracted. I force myself to the task at hand and give her a fixed smile that will hopefully confuse her. “I know how this looks, but honestly, I really am just that clumsy and stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” the counselor says automatically, brushing back mousy, chin-length hair. Emotions appear behind her: Frustration and Worry. They don’t linger. “But I do think you’re keeping something from me. Elizabeth, if you’re afraid,
From the expression in her eyes, I know she really does mean what she says. In a way, Sally reminds me of Maggie, of Joshua; they all look at me and see more than there is. They all care, no matter what their instincts probably whisper. I smile at her, as if I’m amused by all of this. “Really, I’m doing fine. Thanks for asking.”
She’s frowning, but she lets me go reluctantly. She has to. No one can be helped if they don’t want it.
This time Fear doesn’t catch me by surprise. He approaches from the west, quick as a shooting star—I feel the wall of nothingness stir, hear the cows’ sounds of unease begin. I sit in the loft of the barn, my hands lying limply in my lap, staring at one of the paintings. My attention keeps going to the boy, and the last dream replays over and over again in my head: those words, the red eyes, the hungry insects.
There are just a few minutes of sunset left. The weakening light leaks into the loft, warming my skin. I close my eyes.
“You never did explain the newspaper to me,” I say.
Fear sits down beside me, his dark coat billowing around us, sending cool air flowing in all directions. I shiver, keeping my eyes on the brush strokes. Fear reaches out and brushes my hair over my shoulder. His finger touches my neck in doing so, and where any other person would scream, I only look at him. He pushes images into my mind that might drive someone else insane. Blood. Rape. Glinting knives and torture devices lying on a table, then a moment later being delved deep into flesh. Even more, which I only observe, a detached spectator.
“You’ve lived a long life,” I say. “Some might say too long.”
“And others may say too short,” he counters, pulling away. “I am what I am.”
“Do you ever get tired of it?” I ask, because I wonder if anyone is really capable of change. Or are we only lying to ourselves, believing in something different, something more? Perhaps change is equivalent to believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.
Fear scoffs at the question, stretching out his long legs before him. “What a strange idea—getting tired of instilling terror in humanity when it’s what I exist to do.”
“Your brother said something along the same lines, I think.” I’m not paying attention to the words coming out of my mouth; my mind wanders, contemplating the dreams again. Never once has the girl or the boy said a name. And those red eyes … my instincts still want to point at someone. Or some
“You met Courage?” Fear’s voice is sharp and it brings me back to reality. His white-blond hair is wild, unpredictable. The beautiful layers are alive with light. He can be a pleasure to look at, and I understand how some other humans love to experience his essence. We can sense beauty, even if we can’t see it.
It’s colder now that the sun is slipping away. Pulling my knees close to me and clasping my arms around them, I look down at the floor as I answer. “Yes. He was visiting someone in my class.”
“And what did you think of my counterpart?” Bitterness twists Fear’s voice, his agitation making the hay around our feet stir. Some cows below sense his unrest and begin to bay uneasily.
“Calm, Fear,” I say, resting my hand on his arm. He stills at the touch, looking at my hand with a combination of bewilderment and wonderment.
“No mortal has ever touched me so willingly,” he murmurs. The silken quality to the words causes my wall of nothingness to quiver again. Instinct takes hold, but just as I start to pull away, Fear moves in a blur, snatching hold of me. His fingers interlace with mine, and his power wars with my emptiness for the umpteenth time. But on some deeper level, I do sense a connection to Fear. Not to his essence, of course … to something else. Something far more substantial. But I can’t name it.
As the quiet wraps around us, I bend my head toward Fear’s and examine the touch. Our hands are odd together—my skin is dark from hours working beneath the sun, and his is pale, smooth, perfect. Not human.
At the thought, I pull away. “I’m just not like most mortals.” I smile blandly at Fear.
Surprisingly enough, he doesn’t react. “I’ve been watching you your entire life,” he says instead, directing his attention to the beams in the ceiling. “The first time we met you were … four? Maybe five. That scum swung his fist at your mom, and my touch didn’t affect you. You were just standing in a corner watching it all. You looked right at me. You were wise enough even at that time not to speak out loud. You’re wrong when you say I’m here because I’m bored. I’ve been looking for answers since that day.”
The screen door to the house slams in the distance. Probably Tim coming in from the fields. I turn my head to look at Fear. He doesn’t notice; he’s staring at the painting straight across from us. His brow is furrowed. He’ll never quit trying to figure me out, not even for a second.
“How did you entertain yourself before you found me?” I ask him absently, just filling an empty space with words.
Fear goes against my expectations by actually answering. And it’s strange, because his tone is similar to mine: detached, blank, inconsequential. Like he doesn’t want to care. “Before you, there was another girl,” he murmurs. He shifts, restless, and I see a pain in his eyes that he can’t hide. He’s never spoken of this before, and I speculate the reasons behind this. “Not like you, of course.” He doesn’t smirk or grin. “She was … she felt everything. She danced with so much abandon that everyone would stop just to watch. She was impassioned by just about anything. Her family, her home.” He falters, very unlike his normal behavior.
“And you loved her,” I say simply. Why does the insight cause my wall to twinge? Even more bizarre is that I ignore the usual impulses and refrain from exploring this.
There’s a pause. Then Fear swallows. “Yes, I did. I loved her.”
Nothing more. I don’t bother asking where she is now, since it’s obvious the girl is dead. I find myself trying to calculate what marked her and made her stand out to Fear. We have nothing in common; he said so himself. Do I look like her? Was she surrounded by mystery as well?
I don’t voice any of the questions, because Fear’s posture is stiff and I know he’s reached his limit for truths tonight. But maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought.
